Underground Film Journal

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NW Film Center: Deborah Stratman

By Mike Everleth ⋅ February 4, 2011

Text logo for the NW Film Center

Feb. 6
7:00 p.m.
NW Film Center
Whitsell Auditorium
1219 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR 97205

Hosted by: NW Film Center

Chicago-based experimental documentary filmmaker Deborah Stratman will trek out to Portland, OR to screen a selection of her films, including one of her most recent.

Stratman’s films deal with landscapes, systems and people’s interactions with both. Included in this screening are the first two short films of her Paranormal Trilogy, which explore metaphysical concepts and how they relate to our physical world.

The two Paranormal Trilogy films are:  How Among the Frozen Words (2005, 1 min.) looks at the possibility of sounds being preserved through time; while It Will Die Out in the Mind (2006, 4 min.) seeks to discover if the paranormal can actually exist in our current information overloaded culture.

Currently, there is no description for the third short film screening, These Blazing Stars (2011, 15 min.).

In addition to the short films, there will be a screening of Stratman’s acclaimed feature-length-doc, O’er the Land (2009, 52 min.), which won the Best International On Screen (Film) Award at the 2009 Images Festival.

O’er the Land delves into the heightened sense of threats to American security, including issues related to national identity, gun culture, wilderness, patriotism and, perhaps, personal transendence. In addition, the documentary relates the story of Col. William Rankin, who got stuck bouncing around the Earth’s atmosphere for 45 minutes in 1959 after ejecting from his fighter jet in a tumultuous thunderstorm.

More info on the filmmaker can be found on her official website.

Image from O’er the Land taken from Stratman’s website:

Fireman standing in the middle of a blaze